The present invention relates to warning lights of the type used on barricades or drums in hazardous locations such as construction areas for warning the public of road or environmental hazards. More particularly, the invention is related to such lights that are solar powered, and lights having a flashing mode of operation.
The illumination of hazardous areas where injuries might happen at night or during twilight hours has been accomplished in the past with torches, oil-filled lanterns, battery lights, etc. Such devices are troublesome to maintain and have costly replacement parts. Another problem encountered with any warning light is theft of the light. Occasionally vandals will remove the light from its supporting barrier by merely lifting the light off the barrier and carrying it away.
One type of prior art warning light, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,017 to Williams discloses a solar powered construction light and includes a simple circuit that obtains power from the sun and stores the power in a battery. When the light is turned on, the battery supplies current to the bulb. These and other warning lights of the prior art suffer from numerous disadvantages; for example:
1. they are expensive to provide in that they require high-voltage solar modules and multi-celled rechargeable batteries for proper operation;
2. they consume excessive battery power in that they operate in daylight as well as at night; and
3. they require manual operation for discontinuing daylight operation.
Thus there is a need for a warning light that overcomes these problems.